Some Mothers
by Amielleon
Summary: Some mothers are warm, some mothers are not. Some mothers to Soujirou.


ichi.  
Fuyu of a family of no name strokes her child's soft hair and hates herself. The four-year-old boy is upset because she is upset, not because he understands that they will part for years that might stretch into forever. He is too young to know what money is for, how necessary it is, how hard it is for a woman to earn. When her lover died, Fuyu sent a desperate letter home to her parents who had (cruelly and wisely) disapproved; they wrote back that she was their daughter but he was not their grandson and they would provide for their own and only their own. She almost burned the letter—he was her darling, how could they ask that of her?—but in the end she sold all her lover's gifts but still hadn't enough to buy even the cheapest tenement house after her old home was seized for her lover's rightful heirs. (He had said he loved her—he said she would be provided for—he said he would remarry for her—he never did.) She searched for work and found only one occupation; she was wise enough to know that was no way for her or her child to live. Still, reflecting upon this during their last night together in an inn in Tokyo, she thinks that she should have made those sacrifices for him (wisdom be damned, that was what love was supposed to bring her to). She holds Soujirou to her chest so tightly he squirms, and weeps to no one, "I'm sorry, Sou-chan. Your mama is a coward. Your mama is a coward."

ni.  
Seta Kiyo has no use for a boy who won't work. Her own boys helped around the house as soon as they could walk. It seems only right to her that an outside child who demands their food ought to do that and more. But he is as indolent as his leech of a mother, and he reacts to discipline by throwing tantrums. Bad blood will show. Her drunken husband has already tired her of cleaning up after other peoples' messes. Her father-in-law's illegitimate child is not her problem, but Kiyo is graceful enough to raise him anyway. She tells him at times, "You ought to be grateful we agreed to raise you." The brat only responds with an expressionless face. He never shows an ounce of appreciation.

san.  
Komagata Yumi has no idea why her newest and finest lover brought a child with him. He says the boy is a prodigy with the sword; she wonders why his allies weren't already enough. It's obvious to anyone that Shishio is not a man for children. (She wonders to herself if the boy was always strange in the head or if that is the natural result of having Shishio Makoto for a father-of-sorts.) Nonetheless she is far too smitten with Shishio to reject him for his tagalong, and for the most part Shishio keeps him too busy to bother her. On occasion, naturally, they fought—or rather, Shishio would rebuke him while the boy, Soujirou, carried on gaily about how it was really not his fault at all (even if it clearly was)—and the twelve-year-old (nearly the age to be a man) would retreat to her like a stray dog to whom anyone's table scraps were the same, and lay his head on her shoulder like a child half his age as she tried to read literary criticism. Whether it was because of her nature or her occupational training, she felt it too awkward to ignore him, so she would lightly run her fingers across his shoulders and his back while saying, "Really, Sou-chan, you blockhead. You shouldn't try Shishio-sama's patience like that." The strange boy would smile into her shoulder, that was all. For a time she believed what Shishio said, that all emotion within him had died but amusement (supposing self-pity was not an emotion). Once she let her fingers run through his hair and (having a talent for sensing what pleases people) felt the boy just slightly relax. She strokes his hair from then on. Yumi thinks to herself that a person who seeks comfort like a child must have joy, anger, and grief somewhere inside. But the boy says nothing of substance; Hagiwara's book is wonderfully clever; Yumi has no reason to pry.

rei.  
One day she sees a young man with her own face, and in a moment the thought seizes her that he is her son. He looks the right age, he has his large eyes, his hair even falls in the same way. He has a bearing too graceful for a rice porter and a small pack over his shoulder like a wanderer. Maybe her child's fate twisted and turned out of the merchants' house.

The wanderer glances at her in passing and doesn't seem to recognize her. And she thinks instead, maybe she is inventing phantoms again. Only one thing is clear: he disappears in the moving crowd without a coin for her bowl.


End file.
